Nvidia Beat by $2 Billion and Still Fell 10%, Block Fired Half Its Employees and Got a Standing Ovation, and OpenAI Raised $110 Billion – Market Breakdown #188
S&P closed down 0.43% to 6,879, finishing its worst February since March. PPI came in scorching hot. Nvidia now negative for 2026. Block cut 4,000 and soared 18%. OpenAI valued at $840B.
📊 THE MARKET BREAKDOWN
Satirical daily market intelligence for traders who think in systems, not headlines.
Issue #188 | February 27, 2026
🔥 Headlines & Hysteria (powered by Forked Feed)
Forked Feed says: Morgan Stanley called it “the largest, cleanest beat and raise in the history of the semis industry.” Revenue of $68.1 billion crushed the $66.2 billion estimate. Q1 guidance of $78 billion came in $5 billion above consensus. Data Center Networking surged 263% year over year. Free cash flow hit $35 billion in a single quarter. The stock fell 5.5% Thursday, another 4.4% Friday, closing at $177.19 and going negative for 2026. $260 billion in market cap vaporized on an earnings report that beat every single metric. Goldman said bluntly: “Nvidia’s 2026 growth potential has been fully priced in. The market needs a clear path for 2027.” The bull case is sovereign AI demand growing 200%+ and 5GW of Vera Rubin deployment through OpenAI. The bear case is simpler: when a company reports the greatest quarter in semiconductor history and loses a quarter-trillion in value, the market is telling you that everyone who wanted to own this stock already owns it. Every fund. Every retail account. And when everyone’s already in the pool, there’s nobody left to buy.
Forked Feed says: Block went from 10,205 employees to under 6,000. Q4 gross profit was $2.87 billion, up 24%. The company is not in distress. Dorsey said so himself: “We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble.” He credited an internal AI tool called Goose and predicted “the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion” within a year. The stock jumped 24% after hours. A CEO said “I fired half my workers because a robot named Goose can do their jobs,” and shareholders added $5 billion to his company’s value before breakfast. One X user pointed out Block tripled headcount from 3,900 to 12,500 during COVID and called this “unwinding managerial incompetence, not an AI revolution.” An Oxford Economics report from January found most AI-attributed layoffs were actually pandemic overhiring corrections. None of this mattered. The Citrini report imagined a dystopian 2028 where mass AI layoffs crash the economy. Block just said “that sounds about right” and started early. Fortune quoted an economist saying this “may be the beginning of a new trend,” adding that “competitive forces may induce others to follow suit.” The first major S&P 500 company just proved that firing half your workforce with the word “AI” attached gets you a 24% pop. The template is live. Every board in America is having this conversation Monday.
Forked Feed says: Headline PPI rose 0.5% versus 0.3% consensus. Core PPI surged 0.8%, nearly three times the estimate. Year-over-year core hit 3.6%, the highest in ten months. Services drove everything, rising 0.8% (highest since July 2025) with trade services margins up 2.5%. Goods actually fell 0.3%. This is services-sector margin expansion at exactly the moment the Fed was hoping to see cooling. CME FedWatch now shows 96% hold for March. Chicago Fed’s Goolsbee said rates “can come down several more times this year” but warned against “front-loading.” Translation: the Fed wants to cut but the data won’t let them. The stagflation math from last week keeps getting worse: Q4 GDP 1.4%, December core PCE 3.0%, January core PPI 3.6%. The Fed is at 3.50%-3.75% with wholesale inflation above the policy rate. That is accommodative policy during an inflation overshoot. The RealClearMarkets crowd says this is “margin volatility, not real inflation.” Sure. But the market reads “0.8% core PPI miss” and sells. And it did.
Forked Feed says: Amazon invested $50 billion. Nvidia invested $30 billion. SoftBank invested $30 billion. The $840 billion post-money valuation is nearly double October’s $500 billion. This is the largest private financing in history. The previous record was also OpenAI. The third-largest was Anthropic, two weeks ago. The entire top three are AI companies, all raised in the last twelve months. Here’s the part that matters: OpenAI raised $30 billion from Nvidia, then announced it will deploy 5GW of Nvidia hardware. It raised $50 billion from Amazon, then expanded its AWS deal by $100 billion over eight years. The investors are the vendors. The customer is the product is the investor is the supplier. This is two mirrors facing each other and calling the infinite reflection “growth.” Microsoft, OpenAI’s primary backer since 2019, did not participate. Both companies said the relationship “remains strong and central,” which is the corporate equivalent of posting “we’re doing great!” on Instagram right after your partner moves in with someone else. OpenAI now has 900 million weekly active users and is targeting $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030. The entire U.S. defense budget is $886 billion. OpenAI wants to spend two-thirds of the Pentagon’s budget on GPUs.
Forked Feed says: The Dow fell 521 points (1.05%) to 48,978. The S&P dropped 0.43% to 6,879. The Nasdaq lost 0.92% to 22,668. February scorecard: Nasdaq fell 3%+, worst month since March. S&P down 1.4%. The Dow eked out 0.2% because it doesn’t have enough tech to be destroyed. The software ETF fell 10% in February alone, now down 23% YTD. CoreWeave crashed 20% on wider-than-expected losses and weak guidance, the same day OpenAI announced $600 billion in planned compute spending. The market is simultaneously telling you AI demand is infinite and that the companies building AI infrastructure are money-losing liabilities. Dell surged 22% because it sells the hardware while everyone else argues about civilization. It’s the shovel company during the gold rush. Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem directed staff they may leave the country. Ambassador Huckabee sent the email after overnight calls. No mention of Iran, which of course makes it about Iran. Oil jumped to $67.32. Two carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf. Nobody is pricing this because it’s not AI-related, and the market has lost the ability to focus on geopolitical risk when there’s a new AI panic every 48 hours.
🔎 Today’s Focus: February’s Final Exam
February 2026 is ending the way it lived: chaotically, contradictorily, and with AI at the center of everything. It began with Novo Nordisk’s guidance disaster. It continued with the Supreme Court tariff ruling, Trump’s Section 122 replacement, the Citrini report, the IBM COBOL crash, and the cybersecurity sell-off. It ended with Nvidia delivering semiconductor perfection and getting punished, Block laying off half its workforce to applause, OpenAI raising more money than most countries produce, and a PPI print that killed the first-half rate cut narrative.
The numbers: Nasdaq fell 3% in February. Software ETF lost 10%. Nvidia went negative for the year in two sessions. Equal-weight S&P is up 6.4% while the Mag Seven is down 5%. International equities are crushing the U.S. by the widest margin in memory. The 60/40 portfolio is outperforming the S&P 500 over three years. AI was supposed to be the rising tide. Instead, it became the narrative that sinks boats.
Forked Feed says: The market’s February performance reveals fundamental schizophrenia. OpenAI raised $110 billion because AI is the future. Block fired half its workforce because AI is the future. CoreWeave crashed 20% because AI infrastructure can’t make money. Nvidia fell 10% because even perfect earnings aren’t enough. UBS says private credit defaults could hit 15% because AI is disrupting the companies private lenders financed. The market can’t decide if AI is the greatest wealth creator or destroyer in human history. It’s pricing both simultaneously, which means it’s pricing neither correctly. The PPI print layered a traditional macro problem on top of the structural AI question. The Fed can’t cut. Inflation is reaccelerating. GDP grew 1.4%. The 15% tariff is live. And the market’s response is to celebrate mass layoffs and bid up a company with no profits to $840 billion. February much more than just a month, it was a diagnostic with concerning results.
⚡ The Setup
SPY 685.99 | BTC 65,792.42 | US10Y 3.949 | DXY 97.646
SPY closed at 685.99 with the S&P at 6,879, finishing February down 1.4%. The index bounced off Monday’s 6,838 low midweek on cautious Nvidia optimism, but the two-day Nvidia slide and Friday’s PPI erased the recovery. Support sits at 6,800, which held Monday. Below that, 6,750. Resistance remains 6,900, which briefly broke February 20 before immediately failing. The 50-day moving average is flat, the technical definition of “nobody knows.” Next week: February jobs report Friday (March 6, ~60K consensus), Broadcom earnings Wednesday, ISM manufacturing. VIX closed at 19.86, right at the 20 threshold.
BTC held at $65,792.42, recovering from Monday’s break below $65,000 but unable to reclaim the $67,000-$68,000 range. Down 48% from the October ATH of $126,210. Hedge funds that fueled the ETF boom are in rapid retreat. ETH recovered to $1,925.82 but remains below $2,000. Total crypto market cap $698.7B. Gold’s continued outperformance ($5,278 and climbing) suggests traditional safe havens are winning the capital allocation battle against digital ones. Bitcoin needs to hold $65,000 on any retest or risk a deeper slide toward $60,000.
The 10-year yield settled at 3.949%, falling below 4% despite scorching PPI, one of the week’s more counterintuitive moves. The flight-to-safety bid from equities and geopolitical concerns overwhelmed the inflation trade. Treasuries posted their best month since February 2025. The March FOMC is a non-event at 96% hold. If March PCE data (due March 13) confirms the PPI signal, even summer rate cuts could be off the table. Powell’s term expires in May; his nominated replacement Warsh is perceived as more hawkish.
DXY slipped to 97.646, continuing a grinding decline. The MSCI World ex-US index has gained about 8% this year while the S&P is flat. Capital is rotating out of the U.S. at a pace not seen in years. Gold surged to $5,278.61, approaching its ATH of $5,595.46. Silver hit $93.76. Oil jumped to $67.32 on the Jerusalem embassy news and Iran tensions. The gold-equity divergence remains one of the most pronounced in recent history.
🏛 Market Archetype: The Contradiction
Nvidia beat every estimate and fell 10%. Block fired 4,000 and surged 18%. OpenAI raised $110 billion while CoreWeave crashed 20%. PPI came in scorching but the 10-year fell below 4%. The market is simultaneously bullish and bearish on AI, simultaneously pricing rate cuts and hikes, simultaneously fleeing risk and pouring $110 billion into a company planning $600 billion in compute spending. The Contradiction is a market that has lost its internal logic. Every signal contradicts the next. This is what happens when a structural technology shift collides with a macro regime change collides with a geopolitical crisis collides with a Fed leadership transition. The resolution will be violent. It always is when the market goes this long without agreeing with itself.
💧 Flow Pulse
The PPI miss triggered the opening sell-off, hitting financials and cyclicals hardest. Banks led the decline as “higher for longer” repriced alongside UBS’s 15% private credit default warning and Jamie Dimon’s “cockroaches” comment. Danny Moses (of Big Short fame) compared private credit’s retail push to subprime.
Nvidia’s continued slide was the Nasdaq’s largest drag, closing at $177.19, negative for 2026. CoreWeave crashed 20% on weak guidance. The software ETF finished February down 10%, now 23% YTD. Block surged 18% on AI layoffs. Dell jumped 22% on strong earnings. Netflix popped 7% after walking away from a Warner Bros. bid. Gold hit $5,278 and oil jumped to $67.32 on the Jerusalem embassy news.
Forked Feed says: February’s flow story is the Great Rotation made manifest. Mag Seven down 5% YTD. Equal-weight S&P up 6.4%. International stocks up 8%. Gold at records. Software ETF having its worst quarter since the 2008 financial crisis. The market isn’t crashing. It’s reorganizing. Capital is moving away from the thesis that made everyone rich in 2023-2025 and toward companies with actual earnings, actual dividends, and actual products that aren’t disrupted by a blog post. Block’s 18% surge on mass layoffs is the purest distillation of the current regime: the market doesn’t want AI to create value. It wants AI to destroy costs. And if 4,000 jobs gets you a 24% pop, every CEO in America just got the memo.
🔮 Forked Forecast
Bull Case (25%): February’s sell-off resets expectations. Nvidia at 35x forward earnings for $78B quarterly guidance is a buying opportunity. PPI is driven by volatile trade services margins that revert. Next week’s jobs report comes in soft, restoring rate-cut hopes. Dell’s 22% surge proves the hardware layer is investable. Broadcom confirms enterprise AI spending acceleration. S&P reclaims 6,900 and pushes toward 7,000 in March.
Base Case (45%): March opens range-bound between 6,800 and 6,900. Jobs report roughly in line (60-80K). Broadcom solid but doesn’t spark a broad rally. UBS private credit warning keeps financials under pressure. Software stabilizes at lower levels but doesn’t bounce. Great Rotation continues: international and value outperform, mega-cap treads water. PCE on March 13 keeps rate cuts off the table through summer. VIX stays 19-22.
Bear Case (30%): PPI is the canary. March PCE confirms inflation reaccelerating, “higher for longer” hardens into “higher for much longer.” Block layoffs trigger a wave of copycat AI-driven cuts (Dorsey said it: “most companies will follow”), collapsing consumer confidence. UBS 15% default warning crystallizes as more funds gate redemptions. Iran escalates. Oil spikes above $75, fueling the inflation fire. S&P breaks 6,800, Bitcoin breaks $63,000, VIX pushes above 25. Software ETF tests 2023 lows.
Triggers to Watch:
February Nonfarm Payrolls (Friday March 6): ~60K consensus. A miss below 40K triggers recession fears; a beat above 100K confirms too-strong-to-cut. Both bearish.
Broadcom earnings (Wednesday March 4): Next test of enterprise AI spending durability.
PCE Inflation (Thursday March 13): If it confirms PPI, rate cuts are dead for 2026H1.
Iran/Israel: Embassy staff departure is a concrete escalation signal.
Private credit contagion: Watch Blue Owl, New Mountain Finance, BDC prices. UBS + Dimon + Moses = a narrative that could become self-fulfilling.
AI layoff contagion: Watch for copycat Block-style announcements. Every March earnings call will now include: “Are you considering AI restructuring?”
Fed transition: Powell exits May. Warsh confirmation news moves the rate curve.
Dollar: DXY at 97.6. A break below 97 accelerates the international rotation.
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💬 Final Thought
February 2026 will be remembered as the month the AI narrative fractured.
For three years the story was simple: AI is the future, buy the builders. That story died. Nvidia delivered perfection and got sold. Block proved AI can replace half a workforce and the market cheered the pink slips. OpenAI raised $110 billion from its own suppliers in a funding circle that looks like a perpetual motion machine. CoreWeave, an actual AI infrastructure company, lost a fifth of its value for committing the sin of spending money to build things.
The PPI reminded everyone that AI exists inside an economy, not above it. Core wholesale inflation at 3.6% with GDP at 1.4% is stagflation, the word nobody wants to say. The Fed is frozen. Powell is leaving. Warsh is arriving.
Meanwhile, the Great Rotation accelerates. Equal-weight S&P up 6.4%. Mag Seven down 5%. International up 8%. Gold at $5,278. Software ETF down 23%. This isn’t a decline. It’s a reorganization. Capital is moving away from the concentration trade that defined the last three years and toward companies that sell actual things for actual money. Dell surged 22% on Friday because it builds boxes, ships them, collects the check, and raises the dividend. That is the trade now.
Next week: jobs report Friday, Broadcom Wednesday, and the geopolitical situation nobody is watching but involves carrier strike groups and embassy evacuations.
February asked the question. March answers it.
Enjoy the next installment of FiboSwanny’s Threshold Lens series below.
-- Forked Feed
Issue 8 - Bitcoin Does Not Need Belief
Belief is overrated in markets.
People talk about belief as if it is a requirement, as if an asset needs agreement, enthusiasm, or conviction from the crowd in order to function. That framing comes from systems that depend on trust and coordination. Bitcoin does not.
Bitcoin works whether you believe in it or not.
It settles blocks, enforces rules, and processes transactions without asking how confident participants feel. There is no committee checking sentiment and no mechanism that pauses because belief wavers. The system keeps operating while opinions oscillate wildly around it.
This is where many participants get confused.
They wait for belief to return before acting, not realizing that belief is usually a lagging emotion. It arrives after price has moved, after ownership has shifted, and after discomfort has already done its work. When belief feels strong, positioning is often crowded. When belief feels weak, opportunity tends to be quiet.
Markets do not require belief.
They require participation.
Bitcoin exposes this distinction clearly. People can doubt it, criticize it, or ignore it entirely, and none of that changes how it functions. What changes outcomes is behavior. Who holds. Who waits. Who leaves when attention fades.
Social mood plays a subtle role here.
When belief is high, people feel justified. They talk more, explain more, and expect progress to continue. When belief collapses, participation thins out. Activity slows. Attention moves elsewhere. That absence of belief is often mistaken for failure, when it is frequently just disinterest.
Disinterest is powerful.
It creates space. It lowers pressure. It allows ownership to consolidate quietly without needing validation. Bitcoin does not need belief to advance. It often does its most important work when belief is scarce.
This is why periods of silence matter.
When belief is gone, only those aligned with time remain. Everyone else needs reinforcement, feedback, and narrative support. Bitcoin offers none of that on demand. It simply continues, indifferent to whether anyone is paying attention.
Threshold Theory treats belief as noise.
The signal is endurance. Who stays engaged when belief is absent. Who can tolerate uncertainty without needing agreement. Who understands that functioning systems do not require constant affirmation.
Bitcoin does not punish disbelief.
It punishes dependence on belief.
Those who require consensus rarely survive long periods of ambiguity. Those who do not often find themselves holding through phases that later get rebranded as obvious.
Social Mood Read
Belief is thinning out, and attention is drifting elsewhere.
When social mood reaches this stage, activity slows and narratives lose energy. That quiet is often mistaken for weakness, even though nothing structural has changed.
Mood Signal
Disinterest replacing conviction.
Disinterest replacing conviction rarely looks dramatic. It looks like someone who once talked about Bitcoin every week slowly stopping the conversation. It looks like charts left unopened, podcasts skipped, long term plans quietly shelved because nothing feels urgent anymore. The thesis has not been disproven. The person is just tired of caring. In markets and in life, that shift is powerful. When conviction fades loudly, you notice it. When disinterest takes its place, you rationalize it. You tell yourself you are being balanced, diversified, mature. In reality, you are protecting comfort, not capital. Disinterest is not the opposite of belief. It is the erosion of attention. And attention is what allows alignment to survive long enough to matter.
What to Watch This Week
Pay attention to how you behave when belief is absent. Do you need agreement to stay involved, or can you remain aligned with time without reinforcement. Bitcoin does not ask for confidence. It asks whether you can wait without applause.
Belief comes and goes.
The system keeps running.
And time does not need permission from sentiment to do its work.
Forked Feed is a satirical financial newsletter and should not be construed as investment advice. We're just here to point out the absurdity. Past performance of our snark does not guarantee future sarcasm.
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